Interior designers often use lighting to create visual effects within a room. One of the more popular dramatic effects includes illuminating a vertical surface such as a wall with light. The light fixtures designed to illuminate a wall are typically called wall-wash fixtures. If a wall-wash light fixture is mounted in a ceiling, it falls into a class of lighting fixtures known as down lights. If a wall-wash light fixture is positioned near the floor, it is called an up-light.
Ceiling mounted down light fixtures, particularly those whose bottom surface is substantially flush with a ceiling surface, typically include a housing which extends upwardly through a hole in a ceiling panel. The housing provides a mounting for the light source, electrical connections for the light source, and a mounting for the visible portion of the trim ring assembly. Ceiling mounted down light fixtures are used to provide illumination in many residential, commercial, and educational buildings.
Most ceiling mounted down light fixtures are used for direct room illumination; however, some ceiling mounted down light fixtures are used to create a wall-wash lighting effect. Such wall-wash lighting effect from ceiling mounted down lights is often created by directing the light rays from the light source at an angle with respect to a plane perpendicular to the ceiling. However, to properly direct the light toward the wall to be illuminated, it is often necessary to either enlarge the opening in the trim ring through which light passes or to move the light source to a position below the ceiling surface. Neither of these two solutions is generally acceptable to interior designers.
When floor mounted up-light fixtures are used to create wall-wash light, they are often tilted toward the walls to direct the light rays emitted by the light source. However, the result from tilting an up-light fixture toward a wall is strong illumination near the lighting fixture and the appearance of a parabolic-shaped lighting pattern.
Because of the continued desire of interior designers to obtain unique and dramatic lighting effects with wall-wash lighting fixtures, a variety of different wall-wash light products are now available. While presently available ceiling or floor mounted wall-wash light fixtures are able to illuminate wall surfaces, problems still remain. First, most of the commonly available wall-wash light products provide an illumination pattern which produces substantially different light intensities on substantially vertical wall surfaces. Second, most of the commonly available wall-wash light fixture products do not fully and uniformly direct light toward the surface to be illuminated. Specifically, the pattern of light on the wall to be illuminated includes noticeable dark areas either near the top or near the bottom of the wall. These dark areas extend into the corners where the wall joins either the ceiling or the floor. Third, wall-wash light fixture products with a large opening in the trim ring or with the light source extending outwardly from the wall-wash lighting product create an appearance unacceptable to most interior designers.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for a wall-wash light fixture which provides a substantially uniform wall illumination pattern, illuminates a large portion of the wall, and minimizes the size of the dark areas where the wall intersects the ceiling or the floor, while at the same time presenting an unobtrusive appearance acceptable to room designers.